Friday, September 19th, 2014

Time	Event
10:59a	Black Virgin of Russia Fyodorovskaya Theotokos (Russian: Федоровская Богоматерь), also known as Our Lady of St. Theodore and the Black Virgin Mary of Russia is the patron icon of the Romanov family and one of the most venerated icons in the Upper Volga region. Her feast days are March 27 and August 29. A Black Madonna or Black Virgin is a statue or painting of Mary in which she is depicted with dark skin, especially those created in Europe in the medieval period or earlier. The Black Madonnas are generally found in Catholic countries. The term refers to a type of Marian statue or painting of mainly medieval origin (12th to 15th centuries), with dark or black features whose exact origins are not always easy to determine due to age, soot, incense smoke and paint coating of an image. The statues are mostly wooden but occasionally stone, often painted and up to 75 cm tall. The pictures are usually icons which are Byzantine in style, often made in 13th- or 14th-century Italy. There are about 450–500 Black Madonnas in Europe, depending on how they are classified. There are at least 180 Vierges Noires in France
11:33a	The 'land of the dead' is a mythic land which appears in traditions from various cultures around the ancient world. Probably the oldest mention of a mythic land of the dead located in the Iberian Peninsula is in the Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland). The legends of Portugal and Spain speak of an enchanted land, the Mourama, the land where an enchanted people, the Mouros dwell under the earth in Portugal and Galicia. The lore of Galicia says that "In Galicia there are two overlapped people: a part lives on the surface of the land; they are the Galician people, and the other in the subsoil, the Mouros". Mourama is the otherworld, the world of the dead from where everything comes back. The Mourama is ruled by an enchanted being who is called rei Mouro, (king Mouro). His daughter is the princesa Moura, (princess Moura), a shapeshifter who changes herself into a snake,also called bicha Moura, or can even be seen riding a dragon.

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